At Kashless.org, we try to make it easy to do the right thing: Reuse to extend our natural resources as far as possible.  We have a great web site that makes Reuse super easy and safe.  In addition to making better software for Reuse, we have experimented with ways to increase the value to you to Reuse instead of throw away or leave something unused.  The web site has a great user reputation system, tracks the pounds of stuff you divert from the landfill, and calculates carbon offsets generated by your Reuse. 

 

In November of last year Kashless.org launched the Kashless Rewards program in partnership with Recyclebank to bring you even more value for your Reuse activities.  By participating in the Kashless.org Reuse community members have been able to earn reward points which can be redeemed for hundreds of valuable items from companies that support going green.  During the last six months of the Kashless Rewards program:

-  Kashless.org has issued over 3 million Reward points

-  Over 40,000 new members have joined the Kashless.org Reuse community

-  Over 200,000 items have been listed by our Kashless.org members for Reuse (in addition to the over 1,000,000 items listed through partner web sites – a 20% increase in reuse listings nationwide!).

-  Over 500,000 pounds of reusable items are not in the landfills.

By any measurement, the Kashless Rewards program has significantly increased interest in and utilization of Reuse.  

 

As a not for profit, Kashless.org is always in search of the best ways to promote our Reuse mission with the limited resources available.  As of today, our resources to support the free Rewards benefits have expired and we are closing down the Rewards program (for now).  While Kashless Rewards has come to an end, members can still use Kashless.org stay green and to give and get free stuff.  Members who have earned Rewards points can access their balances over at RecycleBank at anytime.  Kashless.org will continue to explore ways to increase value to our members and encourage a dynamic Reuse community world-wide.

 

Thanks for being a member and keep on reusing! 

One of them, Burst Media asked me to put this sentence on the site:

 "Hi Burst! I confirm that I own this domain and control all content herein."

funny huh?

 

This week Kashless was featured on MSN Money, and we couldn't be happier with the results.  Our traffic was up 50% the day the article posted, which proves that people really do love free stuff!

Donna Freedman of MSN money writes "Sites such as Kashless, U-Exchange and SwapTreasures offer clothes, furniture, books, musical instruments and just about anything else you may need. Sometimes it's an even-steven swap, sometimes a no-strings-attached giveaway." 

To read the rest of the article, "Free Stuff: Get it, give it, swap it" go here.

Kashless was recently featured on the news in Philadelphia, PA on ABC6.  They did a fantastic job highlighting all of the benefits of giving and getting free stuff through Kashless.org.

We're especially excited about the fact that we gained over 6,000 members in the Philadelphia /NY / New Jersey area over the weekend!  We would like to welcome all of our new members, and encourage the rest of you to check out the news story below to catch a great segment about Kashless. 

PC World just put together an article covering the top "Money Saver Site" that you've yet to hear about and our very own Kashless.org was listed among them.

"You know how useful Craigslist and Free­cycle are for finding free stuff. Kashless is also a site for digging up free loot, but you get rewarded for your activity there, too. With the Kashless Rewards program, members earn points for posting an item, inviting a friend to the site, receiving an item, and so on. You can then redeem your points toward products and coupons from different brands like Amazon, Best Buy, Cold Stone Creamery, and more. And why do you get rewarded for scrounging through somebody's free pile? According to Kashless, you're extending the life of a product, reducing raw-material de­­mand, and eliminating waste. You definitely deserve that free sundae at Cold Stone."

To read more about great sites that will save you money after your Holiday spend-a-thon, check out PC World's article here.

Thinking alot lately about how to use on-line to drive local community and local purchases. Was in my favorite men’s store in Seattle, Oslo’s the other day and picked up the 3/50 project flyer.  Very cool project.  Didn’t know anyone had quantified the impact of shopping local.  Forget Obama’s stimulus funneled through DC and the politicians.  Shop local.

We launched Kashless.org last year after Christmas in Seattle.  I was surprised to see that the first item posted was a Christmas tree and Christmas decorations.  When I think back, it makes alot of sense.  What to do with all that extra stuff after Christmas?  All the extra trimmings, all the old things that you now have new ones of, the double gifts you received, the wrapping paper, boxes, etc.  Thoughtful people look to reuse and recycle all that and along came Kashless.org.  I expect a similar trend this year. 

Interestingly though, we have seen quite a spike in traffic, membership and postings this year BEFORE Christmas.  Not sure if it is people making room for all the new stuff coming, or looking for free Christmas presents, but traffic is up about 30% this last week and over 5,000 new members have joined in the last month.  Many new people are finding us through our recent partnership with RecycleBank.  Many members are also finding holiday shopping deals through our partnership with eBates to get cash back web shopping.  I have also found our partnership with NextWorth personally useful as they sent me cash for an old cell phone!

Merry Christmas all and to all good reuse and recycling!

My friend Susanna runs Citizen Coffee on lower Queen Anne. Citizen Coffee has set up an online deal, giving the first 20 to respond a $10 Citizen Coffee gift card for $5. Yep, that's $5 of free coffee. But the deal's only good for the first 20 people, not everyone in town (sorry Groupon). 




Go here to get this rad deal from Citizen Coffee.

The Kashless Krew is thrilled to say that Kashless members now have the ability to leave public feedback about other Kashless members!

Kashless members are only able to leave member feedback about other Kashless members. We decided to add the ability for our members to leave and receive member feedback in the hopes of adding a little more transparency to the giving and getting process, and make it easier for Kashless members to decide who they want to interact with, within their local Kashless community.  We're excited about this feature being added to the site and hope that it helps make re-using even easier for our members.

A few things to take note of:


1.  Feedback About You. On your public profile, which can be accessed by clicking on your name and profile picture in the upper right hand corner of the home page, you now have three tabs; "Offered", "Wanted" and "Feedback."  Your feedback tab will contain any positive or negative feedback that other Kashless members leave about you and their experience with you on Kashless.

2. Leaving Feedback.  To leave feedback about another Kashless member you can go to their public profile by accessing it through their public listing or through a message from/to them. Click on the feedback tab of their profile and at that point you'll be able to leave a "happy" or "sad" flag on their profile as well as a comment.  Keep in mind that while you can and should leave truthful and detailed information about your experience with members, the information that you provide will be public and is not anonymous. 

3. Feedback visible in the public listings. When browsing Kashless listings, after clicking on an item that you're interested in you can now view how many positive and/or negative ratings the member giving away the item has received. 

4. Commenting on Feedback. Every member who has feedback left about them on the site has one chance to comment on that feedback, whether it be to thank the other member for a kind comment left, or to explain their side of the story in the case of negative feedback.

  

Last week we spoke to you about a bug in the Kashless system that was preventing certain messages from getting through between Kashless members.  Particularly when Kashless members tried to contact people about listings that were originally posted on third party sites.

Well, we are happy to announce that this bug has been fixed and all messaging on the Kashless site should be working perfectly now!  We want to thank you for your patience and understanding on this issue.   So start celebrating the fix by testing it out and getting some great new free stuff off of Kashless this week!

* Please remember that while messaging is working and we hope that Kashless members, and those using third party sites, will politely respond to all inquiries they receive about their listings, we cannot guarantee that you'll receive a response from all members.  From time to time, member simply receive too many inquiries about their listing to respond to every member's message.  (But responding to all members who inquire about your listing is always appreciated by the Kashless Krew and all of our members :-) 

One of the most recent features added to Kashless is our Wanted section.  The "Wanted" section is a place for members to post items that they want or need.  Other members can then browse the wanted ads and respond to members if they have something that somebody else is in need of. 

We have had a great time watching the response of our members to Wanted ads and are excited to say that the section is growing and we've seen some great, positive outcomes from Wanted listings on the site.

In the last few weeks that Wanteds have been available on the site we have had people ask for and receive; a working printer, a wooden desk, a twin bed and mattress and a working treadmill, among other things.  We love seeing our members inspired to open up their garages to others who are in need of something.

Check out the Wanted listings in your area.
 
Create your own Wanted listing by going here and selecting "Wanted."

Learn more about searching for Wanted listings and using the Kashless Filter bar here. 

 

I have been having lots of discussions lately about how to effectively mix profit and non-profit activities in a software company.  Whenever I find myself answering the same question more than once it is time for a blog post. 

Here is how we have set up things here at Kashless.  Kashless, Inc. is a for profit (unprofitable = unsustainable) sustainable company.  Kashless, Inc. is venture funded, and expects to make a profit for it’s shareholders and to grow its business.  Kashless, Inc. develops software to enable reuse marketplaces.  Kashless.org is a non-profit demonstration consumer deployment of the Kashless, Inc. software platform.   Kashless, Inc.’s primary business is licensing the software platform to brands, companies, and organizations, not operating a destination consumer site.  In addition to operating Kashless.org as a public service, like many leading technology companies, Kashless, Inc. has committed a portion of its profits to a charitable foundation, the Kashless Foundation, which will promote Reuse and Recycling around the world. 

 

Thanks to our very observant members, they have helped us discover two very tricky and annoying bugs.  Well that is one reason we are still in Beta.  I am going to describe the bugs here.  We are working on them and should have them fixed soon.  Will update here and Twitter when fixed.

 

Expired listings still showing up as active.  On certain partner listings, the Kashless.org system tries to keep the status of listings on our site in sync with the master listing on partner site.  For the last four weeks or so, this process has been broken on a large number of listings.  This has resulted in people trying to make offers on listings that are expired.  This can be frustrating.  We have identified the cause of the bug and are fixing it.

 

Messages not getting through.  When you press “contact giver” on a listing, if the listing is from a Kashless member, the message is delivered immediately, if it from a partner site, we have to figure out the e-mail address to send it to and deliver it outside our system.  For certain partner sites, this process has been broken for the last couple of weeks and we only recently noticed it.  This meant that people were sending messages, getting no response and wondering what was going on.  We are used to some people simply not responding, but not 100% non-response.  Well, the mails were getting dropped.  Our systems didn’t receive any error messages, so it was a hard problem to figure out.  We have figured out the source of this bug and are also working on a fix.  Sorry for the inconvenience, but any messages sent to partner listings over the last month, you should plan never got there.  Messages to kashless listings were delivered fine.  We will let you know when it is fixed.

We are so very excited about the recent partnership between Kashless.org and Recycle Bank and the beginning of the Kashless Rewards program.  This morning we sent out a press release celebrating the new addition to Kashless and sparking some Kashless shopping ideas for the Holidays. Below a quote from the release:

"This program is an easy way for people to go green for the holidays by
recycling and reusing items online that may otherwise be headed to a landfill,"
said Martin Tobias, CEO/Founder of Kashless.org. "This year go Kashless and
give, receive, earn great rewards, and most important, make a real difference in"
someone`s holiday season." 

Read the rest of the article on Reuters. 

We are excited to announce the Kashless Rewards for Reuse Program, a new way for Kashless members to earn reward points for doing the right thing.  Kashless Reward is powered by RecycleBank, the world's premier currency for rewarding green actions.  Redeem your Kashless Points for rewards, such as everyday discounts at your local grocery store, gift cards at top retailers, gifts to charity, or your next travel adventure.  This is a really big deal!

Members earn Kashless Rewards for posting items, taking items, inviting friends, creating saved searches and more.  Simply setting up a Reward Points account and posting your first item on Kashless will earn you enough points for your first reward.

The rewards you earn for using Kashless.org can then be used toward popular brands like Panera Bread Co, Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, Coca Cola,  Best Buy, Kraft, Cold Stone Creamery, Olive Garden, K-Mart, Whole Foods, Subway, Honest Tea and thousands of other restaurants, clothing stores, travel deals, electronics and groceries.  Or you can donate your points to any participating charity.  There are hundreds of reward partners and counting.    

Members receive Kashless Rewards points for the following activities:

• Post an offered item on Kashless - (5 points)
• Create a "Wanted" post on Kashless - (1 point)
• Fully complete your Kashless profile - (10 points)
• Create your FIRST saved search with any form of notification - (20 points)
• Every saved search after - (10 points)
• Send an e-mail invitation using the invite tool on the Home Page - (20 points)

• 20 point bonus award for setting up first SMS/text message saved search.  
• 100 points bonus award for adding $10 or more Kash to your account
• 50 point bonus award when you post your 20th item.

You can redeem any number of your points at any time in the "rewards" section of your Account Settings or by clicking the new "Rewards" tab on the top navigation bar. With rewards starting as low as 50 Points, the possibilities are endless.

Still have questions? Find out more on our Kashless Rewards FAQ page.
Or learn more on our Kashless Rewards Video.

The word is getting around about us!

Today we were featured on Boot Camp with Fred Fishkin.

The interview was great, with our CEO Martin Tobias on hand to shed some light on his inspiration for starting the company, saying:

"The idea came to me when I was cleaning out my garage and I had a bunch of stuff that was still good... And it was actually much harder than I thought to give it away to a charity. There's a long list of things the Salvation Army and Goodwill won't take. So I created the site."

Fishkin closed by summarizing: "Whether you have stuff to get rid of, or need to find stuff for free, Kashless.org can help."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves!

Listen to it here:

http://bit.ly/8eWIY

It's October, and that means all kinds of great things - crisp weather, pumpkins, candy, corn mazes, and, of course, Halloween.

Are you thinking about Halloween yet? If you're like me, you haven't thought much about it and don't have any supplies. This is great, because it means that you still have time to make this holiday a green holiday.

Get creative! Halloween is easy to make sustainable. Here are our tips:

1)  Make your costume from recycled materials
This may sound obvious to some, and impossible to others. This doesn't mean you have to be a classic bedsheet ghost. All manner of old clothing, trinkets, blankets, and objects can be turned into a costume. See what you can dream up with things you and your friends have lying around.

2) Swap old costumes
You've got a sensational peacock costume sitting in your closet, but you know you couldn't hold your head up if you wore it twice in a row. Your friend happens to have an amazing swamp monster costume in his basement. I see swapping possibilities.

3) Choose sustainable goodies
Instead of handing out mass produced space food candies this year, try earth-friendly organic fruits or candies. Giving away only fruit carries a heavy risk of making you seem tragically uncool to neighborhood kids. A good compromise would be to mix apples and healthier snacks in with all the Mars bars and Jolly Ranchers.

4) Choose earthy decorations
Rather than festooning your place with crepe papers, howling electric witches, and orange-colored plastic objects you found at Target or Joanne Fabrics, try something earthier. Think Indian corn, dried corn stalks, hay bales, pumpkins and squashes. They're classier, anyway - your Mom and Martha Stewart would agree with me on this.

Upcycling is recycling's cool, adventurous cousin. If recycling wears vintage Levi's and grows its hair long, upcycling wears a beret and has a sporty urban haircut.

More technically, upcycling is the process of converting one thing into something of greater value.  For example, transforming bottle caps into earrings or pallets into lawn furniture. It's reinvention.

Let's take a look at some inspirations from our Etsy friends:







































1: Fur Coat "UpCycling," street art by Neonzoon, Berlin

2: SnuggyLuggage Upcycled Vintage Suitcase Pet Bed
by mamarose10, $60

3. YAVA Glass - Recycled Boylan's Soda Bottle Glasses
by yavaglass, $30

4. Pink Blossom - Upcycled Fabric Earrings
by lolitasummer, $16

5. 8 Ball - Circuit Pendant
beadworkbyamanda, $20

6. "Spanish Lessons" Recycled Negatives Earrings
by tomatedepingles, $22

Are you an upcycler? What do you upcycle?